I Love You, Seleden
Eimanka XVI
A week had passed since the Crown Prince ascended the throne. In that time every titled noble of the Empire had come up to the Imperial Capital to swear loyalty to the new Emperor, and the envoys of every nation had bowed their heads in humble deference.
It was only natural—yet there had been an age when even that natural order had collapsed. Back then, he had spent himself coaxing and soothing nobles who clung to absurd pretexts and refused to appear in the capital, and locking horns with kingdoms that would not even send an embassy.
But the Emperor of the Empire was no longer the old Eimanka XVI. It was the young Eimanka XVII. Not a powerless sovereign from a collateral line with no base of support, but a formidable ruler whose maternal house was a ducal family. And that maternal house was not a nest of traitors scheming to control the throne, but loyal retainers who meant to serve him with devotion and love.
Order has been restored.
Even now, when he closed his eyes, the scenes of the abdication ceremony rose before him. The Emperor standing tall amid the Pope’s blessing and the oaths of the dukes. The Emperor who, in the very moment of his coronation, raised the Imperial Grandson to Imperial Granddaughter and proclaimed the stability of the Imperial House.
It felt like a dream. Decades ago, counting what he still possessed had been faster than counting what he lacked. Now it was hard even to find something missing.
At last it stands upright.
Yes. This was an Emperor. This was the Empire.
An Emperor who upheld the will of the Great Emperor Eimanka deserved reverence. The sole empire on the continent deserved awe.
That rightful order was the pillar that upheld not only the dignity of the Imperial House and the Empire, but the peace of its people.
“Your Majesty the Retired Emperor. We have arrived.”
While he was still picturing the Emperor advancing with dignity through the cheers and applause of the multitude, Baron Antrach’s voice reached him from the coachman’s seat.
He ought to be on his estate.
With that thought he opened the carriage door. Having at last resigned as Minister of the Ministry of Palace Affairs, the man should have been enjoying an easy old age on his lands—yet here he was, waiting hand and foot on a worn-out former sovereign. And he was old himself, yet he had insisted on taking the reins. It was enough to leave one speechless.
He would have liked to force the man home, but Baron Antrach’s stubbornness had been famous for as long as he could remember. There was nothing for it but to keep him close.
“From here I will go with Baron Antrach. The rest of you, wait.”
“Your Majesty the Retired Emperor, I beg you to withdraw those words. We will attend Your Majesty ourselves.”
At the entrance of the National Cemetery, when he spoke to the Imperial Knights, they stirred and spoke up at once. Their charge had dismissed his escort and meant to go on alone; the reaction was only natural.
“There is no safer place in this Empire than this. Do not be anxious.”
Even so, he shook his head firmly and pushed their loyalty aside. The place he was going was the safest in the Empire—and at the same time a place he wished to visit quietly.
If they all swarmed in and made a racket, she might not like it. She had never cared for crowds.
“As a subject I understand Your Lordships’ feelings perfectly, but His Majesty the Retired Emperor wishes to move lightly. What can one do? Wait as he asks.”
When even Baron Antrach stepped forward and urged them to stand by, the knights grew more flustered still and did not know what to do.
“Or do you not trust the peace of the Imperial Capital? The Guard Corps will be hurt.”
“Ah—no, my lord!”
“A joke. I was being mischievous.”
At the sight of Baron Antrach chuckling softly, the knights finally yielded. He had called it a joke, but they understood well enough what he truly meant: stop being a nuisance and stay put.
He watched the little scene play out, then set his feet toward the National Cemetery. Having an aged retainer remain at his side even after retirement was not entirely comfortable—yet no one knew his heart better than Baron Antrach. He could not deny that the man’s presence was a comfort.
“In old age a man ought to be watching his grandchildren’s antics. At this rate the young ones will only resent me.”
Baron Antrach, who had fallen in behind him, fretted theatrically.
It was a bit of fuss not worth answering. If mere resentment had frightened him, he would never have come this far—and yet he talked a good game.
“An elder brother should do at least that much for his younger brother.”
At those words Baron Antrach flinched as if startled, then laughed at once.
In a past so distant the memory itself was hazy, he had once treated Baron Antrach as an elder brother. The baron’s father and his own had been close friends whose estates shared a border, and that friendship had passed to their sons. Because of it, he and Baron Antrach had lived like brothers.
That bond had broken when he became Emperor—but now that he had stepped out from under the name of Emperor, he had spoken of those days for the first time in a long while.
“Yes, that’s right. An elder brother ought to do just that.”
Having said so, Baron Antrach kept silent. Whether the baron, like him, was lost in the past, or simply had nothing more to say, he could not tell.
The past.
They say that as one grows old, the memories of youth take on a fairer light. He was no different.
The early years of his reign, even looking back from the end of everything, were not beautiful memories. But the years before his accession truly had been.
He and Baron Antrach, and the Empr—
“Your Majesty the Retired Emperor.”
The sudden voice startled him a little. Lost in thought though he had been, that someone could come so near without his noticing…
He turned his gaze aside and saw the caretaker of the National Cemetery bowing her head lightly before lifting it again. To outward eyes she was a woman with golden hair flowing to her waist and golden eyes, but—
Already as far as the Imperial sector.
Her true identity was the previous Dragon Lord, who concealed herself so that she might tend the Great Emperor Eimanka’s tomb from close at hand.
The moment he set foot in the Imperial sector, the former Lord had appeared like the wind, and he felt a touch of wonder. Ordinarily she was nowhere to be found even if one sought her, yet the instant a foot crossed into the Imperial sector she arrived as if she had been waiting. Dragons, it seemed, really were different.
“I will go on with the caretaker from here. Baron, wait.”
Of course, that the caretaker was the previous Dragon Lord was a secret known only to the Emperor. He ordered Baron Antrach to stand by and walked on with the former Lord. The conversation he was about to have with her was one no one else must overhear.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
At the command, Baron Antrach consented as he always did.
The former Lord walked ahead of him and said nothing. He, for his part, could not speak lightly to the consort of the Great Emperor, and so kept silent as well.
“You have endured much.”
It was the former Lord who broke the silence. In place of the courteous voice she had used while Baron Antrach was present, she spoke in a tone that was imposing and hard—and yet, at the same time, warm.
“I worried often that his Empire, that his descendants, might vanish. I feared he would be reduced from a revered founding ancestor to a mere figure in the histories.”
“That his incompetent descendants caused you such concern is a matter for deep apology.”
“You have no duty to apologize to me.”
She stopped walking and turned her gaze upon him, a faint smile on her lips.
“Nor do I have any right to receive your apology. You are a fine child who raised Eimanka’s will again. It would not be excessive for me to offer you thanks.”
And with that she bowed her head gently. Not the greeting of a National Cemetery caretaker to the Retired Emperor, but the bow of the previous Dragon Lord and consort of the Great Emperor, offered to a mere descendant.
It was disconcerting. To receive such a courtesy from the hidden great elder of the Imperial House made him feel like a monstrous child. That he still could not stop her was only because his body had frozen at the unexpected sight.
“I have laid a spell. Even if you shout from there, no one will hear. So rest easy, and return when you will.”
Lifting her head, she smiled again, and with those words she struck her palms together.
Ah.
In the next breath he was standing in a sector that should have taken a long walk to reach.
Even within the Imperial sector it was rather out of the way—a place with a plain tomb for an Imperial personage.
“…I have come, Empress.”
Before the grave of the Empress who had left his side, the Empress he had failed to protect.
“I meant to prepare my heart a little on the way, but I arrived sooner than I expected.”
He opened his mouth almost in excuse, thrown off balance. From the former Lord’s point of view it was kindness; from his, it felt as if a blade had been driven into him without warning.
“Still—seeing you sooner is good, in its way.”
He closed his mouth for a moment. He wondered whether he had any right to say such a thing to her.
But the words were already spoken. And for this moment at least, right or no right, he wanted to pour out everything he wished to say.
“Gilbert—that boy has become Emperor. Unlike in my day the cries of long live were thunderous, so perhaps the sound reached you as well.”
He carefully stretched out a hand and touched the Empress’s tomb.
“I am no longer Emperor, but the Retired Emperor. The first such case in the history of the Empire.”
Without meaning to, the corner of his mouth lifted. He had thought it before—every “first in the Empire” seemed to fall to him.
“Since I am not Emperor, there is no longer any need to strive, you see.”
Saying it drew a hollow laugh from him. No need to strive. He had neither duty nor mission left; he could simply live as an ordinary man.
But what meaning was there in that? He had thrown everything away and lived until now. What meaning was there in saying he could live ordinarily at last?
“…What a damned thing it is.”
The coarse words came out of him unbidden. He had meant to restrain himself before the Empress, but he could not hold them back.
“It is unjust. How much Imperial blood truly runs in me, and how much do I truly resemble the previous Emperor? As you well know, my father was little better than an ordinary Count.”
He had long since lost any Imperial identity, and had long since drifted far from any Imperial right or duty. He had been not Corvus the Imperial, but Corvus the noble. He had believed that was his fate.
“And then they suddenly told a young man who had only just become a Count to become Emperor, and the marquisates scrambled to put forward an Empress in the gap. It was enough to leave one breathless.”
Yet fate, with cruel irony, had been both higher and harsher than he had thought. He had believed himself a distant collateral branch—and learned he was, relatively speaking, a near one.
He had not particularly wanted to know.
“I thought I would go mad. I, who found even a county burdensome, was to take this Empire; I, who had promised marriage to you, was to marry a woman I had never seen. Never had I resented Enen so bitterly as then.”
And the Empire forced into his hands had been on the brink of ruin, while his marriage partner was the very embodiment of greed and arrogance, with neither love nor duty between them. He had raged at whatever sin of his had earned such a punishment.
Why should he have been placed in such a position? The ones who had ruined the Empire were those cursed direct-line Emperors and the previous sovereign—why should he, long since branched away, bear that karma?
Still, there had been no choice. He had set aside resentment and fury and accepted it.
Because I am a Libnoman.
If he had enjoyed a noble’s life for no better reason than being a descendant of the Great Emperor, then for no better reason than being a collateral line, he ought to shoulder the responsibility.
Because I was not the victim.
And no matter how wronged he felt, he could never be more wronged than the people who had fallen into despair under those dreadful tyrants.
The people who had met those hateful, loathsome dark Emperors—Emperors who had failed to uphold the Great Emperor’s will, who had failed to guard the Mandate of Heaven, who had failed in the mission to bring peace to this world and fill every subject’s belly. Not the likes of him, but those people, were the greatest victims.
And so he had accepted everything. And at the same time he had thrown everything away.
“…Because I believed that was my mission.”
That the throne had come even to a collateral line was all but the last chance Enen and the Great Emperor had granted the Libnomans. If he let that chance slip, what followed would be the fall of the Imperial House and the collapse of the Empire.
For such a man to be swayed by private feeling was luxury, he had decided. To pursue personal happiness was sin. To rest content in the present was incompetence. If he moved by emotion, the people suffered. If he pursued happiness, the Empire tore apart. If he settled for the present, he could not guard the Mandate of Heaven.
He was not a mere human being, but a stepping-stone that bore both the achievements and the karma of the Libnomans. He was nothing more than the intermediate point that must carry the Great Emperor’s brilliant glory on to later generations.
Thinking so, he had run. He had not cast emotion away completely—he had still brought her in as Empress—but looking at how Gilbert had become Emperor, it had been the right choice.
He had forced himself to think so. If it had not been the right choice, then he was the one who had caused her death.
“Ah—do you know what that boy said? That he would throw nothing away.”
He burst out laughing. That the words denying all the days he had thrown everything away should come from his son, his successor as Emperor—and yet he was glad of them.
“If it is that boy, he can do it. I made him able to.”
Did that not mean he had run properly? That the present Emperor need not throw everything away as he had, but could go forward holding everything?
“Truly, truly I made it so. I spent my life… relinquishing even the name of head of house before you and that boy… and built that Empire.”
Of this much he could be certain. Fortunately, one man’s life had been enough to purchase the Empire’s destiny.
“So…”
Yet even that confidence could not bring him to speak the next words. Though he had sworn to pour out everything he wished to say, he could not open his mouth.
And so he stood long in silence before he finally spoke. If not today, he would never be able to say it.
“So if Enen grants us another life—then, in that life, shall we not be born neither Imperial nor noble, but as commoners?”
Yes. He needed neither the violet crown of the Imperial line nor the blue blood of the nobility. If there were a next life, he wanted to live as a commoner.
If he, a commoner, met you, also a commoner, he could marry you without political interference. They could become husband and wife amid pure congratulations.
And they would live in a small house on the edge of a village, not a city, and when morning came he would go out to the nearby fields to work. The fields need not stretch to a broad horizon—only large enough for the two of them and their children to live on.
Raising chickens or pigs might be good as well. Raise them diligently, eat the eggs, and when the children begged for meat, slaughter one now and then—would that not be perfect?
Of course, living as commoners would not mean a life free of trouble and turns. No—setting rank aside, when people live with people, they would quarrel now and then.
Still, just as the ground grows firmer after rain, they would quarrel a little and then make up at once, and live on smiling as if nothing had happened.
Yes. They could live like that. Like ordinary people—ordinary, with nothing special about it. Like that.
…If they lived such a life, he would be able to say it every day.
“I love you, Seleden.”
The words that Emperor Eimanka XVI had never dared to speak.
“I am saying them after thirty years.”
Now that he had cast off the name of Emperor, he spoke to you who had left his side the words that would never reach you.
When he had said even that, a drop of water fell upon the back of the hand resting on the tomb.
Rain?
Wondering if the Empress in the sky had answered him, he lifted his head—but the sky was clear, without a single cloud.
When he lowered his head again, drops were still falling upon the back of his hand.
A strange thing.
His Majesty the Retired Emperor, who had vanished with the caretaker, returned only after a considerable time had passed.
Of course, now that His Majesty had stepped down as Retired Emperor and withdrawn entirely from affairs, lingering long in one place caused no difficulty at all. On the contrary—knowing all too well whose grave he would have been visiting in the Imperial sector—the longer he stayed, the more welcome it was.
“I am tired. Let us return to the Imperial Palace.”
And at the words he left as he climbed into the carriage, I found myself smiling a little.
For decades His Majesty had ruthlessly suppressed every expression of feeling—and now he had openly said that he was tired. It felt as if he had at last set down the strength he had been performing as Emperor, and my heart was eased.
So I made the journey with some haste. Even so, modulating the pace so that His Majesty inside the carriage would not be discomforted was a trial—but one I could more than endure.
“Your Majesty the Retired Emperor. We have arrived.”
Fortunately His Majesty seemed satisfied with my management as well; we reached the Imperial Palace without a single word of reproof.
“Your Majesty?”
But something was wrong. His Majesty, who would normally have answered at once, showed not the slightest movement. I called him several more times after that, with the same result.
…
“Your Majesty, forgive the liberty.”
With a half-formed dread I opened the carriage door and looked in upon him.
And there I saw His Majesty, a faint smile on his lips, his eyes closed in quiet stillness.
“…Corvus.”
Without meaning to, I spoke His Majesty’s name. After the talk of elder and younger brothers at the National Cemetery, the name had simply slipped out.
But I could not help it. The way His Majesty looked now recalled those days.
It was the first unburdened expression I had seen on him since he became Emperor.
You worked hard.
And so, for a moment, I too returned to those days.
To the days when I had been the elder brother encouraging his younger brother.